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<div class="titlepage"><div><div>
<h2 class="title">
<a id="_retrieving_multiple_documents"></a>Retrieving Multiple Documents<a class="edit_me edit_me_private" rel="nofollow" title="Editing on GitHub is available to Elastic" href="https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch-definitive-guide/edit/2.x/030_Data/50_Mget.asciidoc">edit</a>
</h2>
</div></div></div>
<p>As fast as Elasticsearch is, it can be faster still. Combining multiple
requests into one avoids the network overhead of processing each request
individually. If you know that you need to retrieve multiple documents from
Elasticsearch, it is faster to retrieve them all in a single request by using the
<em>multi-get</em>, or <code class="literal">mget</code>, API, instead of document by document.</p>
<p>The <code class="literal">mget</code> API expects a <code class="literal">docs</code> array, each element of which specifies the
<code class="literal">_index</code>, <code class="literal">_type</code>, and <code class="literal">_id</code> metadata of the document you wish to retrieve. You
can also specify a <code class="literal">_source</code> parameter if you just want to retrieve one or
more specific fields:</p>
<div class="pre_wrapper lang-sense">
<pre class="programlisting prettyprint lang-sense">GET /_mget
{
   "docs" : [
      {
         "_index" : "website",
         "_type" :  "blog",
         "_id" :    2
      },
      {
         "_index" : "website",
         "_type" :  "pageviews",
         "_id" :    1,
         "_source": "views"
      }
   ]
}</pre>
</div>
<div class="sense_widget" data-snippet="snippets/030_Data/50_Mget.json"></div>
<p>The response body also contains a <code class="literal">docs</code> array that contains a response
per document, in the same order as specified in the request. Each of these
responses is the same response body that we would expect from an individual
<a class="xref" href="get-doc.html" title="Retrieving a Document"><code class="literal">get</code> request</a>:</p>
<div class="pre_wrapper lang-sense">
<pre class="programlisting prettyprint lang-sense">{
   "docs" : [
      {
         "_index" :   "website",
         "_id" :      "2",
         "_type" :    "blog",
         "found" :    true,
         "_source" : {
            "text" :  "This is a piece of cake...",
            "title" : "My first external blog entry"
         },
         "_version" : 10
      },
      {
         "_index" :   "website",
         "_id" :      "1",
         "_type" :    "pageviews",
         "found" :    true,
         "_version" : 2,
         "_source" : {
            "views" : 2
         }
      }
   ]
}</pre>
</div>
<div class="sense_widget" data-snippet="snippets/030_Data/50_Mget.json"></div>
<p>If the documents you wish to retrieve are all in the same <code class="literal">_index</code> (and maybe
even of the same <code class="literal">_type</code>), you can specify a default <code class="literal">/_index</code> or a
default <code class="literal">/_index/_type</code> in the URL.</p>
<p>You can still override these values in the individual requests:</p>
<div class="pre_wrapper lang-sense">
<pre class="programlisting prettyprint lang-sense">GET /website/blog/_mget
{
   "docs" : [
      { "_id" : 2 },
      { "_type" : "pageviews", "_id" :   1 }
   ]
}</pre>
</div>
<div class="sense_widget" data-snippet="snippets/030_Data/50_Mget.json"></div>
<p>In fact, if all the documents have the same <code class="literal">_index</code> and <code class="literal">_type</code>, you
can just pass an array of <code class="literal">ids</code> instead of the full <code class="literal">docs</code> array:</p>
<div class="pre_wrapper lang-js">
<pre class="programlisting prettyprint lang-js">GET /website/blog/_mget
{
   "ids" : [ "2", "1" ]
}</pre>
</div>
<p>Note that the second document that we requested doesn’t exist. We specified
type <code class="literal">blog</code>, but the document with ID <code class="literal">1</code> is of type <code class="literal">pageviews</code>. This
nonexistence is reported in the response body:</p>
<div class="pre_wrapper lang-sense">
<pre class="programlisting prettyprint lang-sense">{
  "docs" : [
    {
      "_index" :   "website",
      "_type" :    "blog",
      "_id" :      "2",
      "_version" : 10,
      "found" :    true,
      "_source" : {
        "title":   "My first external blog entry",
        "text":    "This is a piece of cake..."
      }
    },
    {
      "_index" :   "website",
      "_type" :    "blog",
      "_id" :      "1",
      "found" :    false  <a id="CO15-1"></a><i class="conum" data-value="1"></i>
    }
  ]
}</pre>
</div>
<div class="sense_widget" data-snippet="snippets/030_Data/50_Mget.json"></div>
<div class="calloutlist">
<table border="0" summary="Callout list">
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="top" width="5%">
<p><a href="#CO15-1"><i class="conum" data-value="1"></i></a></p>
</td>
<td align="left" valign="top">
<p>This document was not found.</p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<p>The fact that the second document wasn’t found didn’t affect the retrieval of
the first document. Each doc is retrieved and reported on individually.</p>
<div class="note admon">
<div class="icon"></div>
<div class="admon_content">
<p>The HTTP status code for the preceding request is <code class="literal">200</code>, even though one
document wasn’t found. In fact, it would still be <code class="literal">200</code> if <em>none</em> of the
requested documents were found—​because the <code class="literal">mget</code>
request itself completed successfully. To determine the success or failure of
the individual documents, you need to check the <code class="literal">found</code> flag.</p>
</div>
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